LA Times Getting Social Media? Candid Discussion with Eric Ulken
Today I happened on the Mashable “Top 10 Blogger Events Post“. I noticed that BarCamp is having an event in LA today. Oops, good timing! I figured, what the heck, I’ll check it out.
I came down, and found an interesting setup. The goal is to have a conversation with the crowd instead of having presenter’s merely talk to the crowd. In other words, the focus of the sessions were wherever the participants took it.
The session that I found really valuable was the one from Eric Ulken from latimes.com. He was hosting a presentation on mashups – how layering data together can create a valuable experience for users. Eric identified three parts of a mashup:
1) The Raw Data
2) The method of incorporation / the editor use of the data
3) The users annotation
He used the LA Times Homicide map as an example. Some of the other maps that they did were the fire maps. He wanted some suggestion as far as other maps to use. Some of the things suggested included a way to attach a timeline to the map, to see the progression, or degression of crime in certain areas. Putting Automobile Accidents on a map, and overlaying two different issues, like DUI’s to homicide’s etc.
Eric mentioned that some of the reasons that they were stuck was because they don’t have all of the technical support that they need. Additionally, alot of data is taken from police reports, and only the LAPD has it easily organized.
There were some other cool ideas thrown around, like being able to geo locate all articles to a spot on a map.
My feeling is that the bottom line is, it’s nice to have Eric behind such ideas, but how much support does he have from the company? Additionally, there is the major issue that newspapers face overall. With the rise of citizen reporting, the role of journalists are much different. Opinions abound, with smart people behind them.
The only place that paid media has is to do sniffing that your amatuer blogger won’t do. Like consistently following up with Police Stations for the nightly reports. If so, the LA Times should be adding more interactivity to their site. Some of the suggestions were to allow users to annotate the stories with links to their own opinions.
I suggested that one of the reasons that the blogging world got so popular was because people get the chance to take credit, by linking back to their own site. Other ways have been to create profiles linked to their comments etc.
If (when?) the LA Times really appreciates their new role in media, with advent of social media, they should start letting go of their own proprietary-ness, and start inviting – no begging their users to participate!
Obviously, there will be alot of issues that still have to be resolved, and lot’s for all of us to learn. How productively and accurately can consumers contribute media? Where is it dangerous to let consumers hijack media? Isn’t it obvious that the people that are most active will have their voices more – doesn’t actively contribute more bias? The news sources that we consider “foolproof” – the police stations, coroner’s office etc. – is there a way to have consumers put their own facts up? How do we judge accuracy? SHould the journalist then be the arbiter on his own piece and people’s comments? Is it possible to involve a “Consumer rating scale”,much like a forum, or like www.sezwho.com?
What about the technical side? What services can a site that needs reliability and scale do to integrate so much data, and organize it? Sift it, pull out the relevant pieces? Make them relational to one another?
Eric was very open to all of the issues, and he is an advocate, and I was very impressed with his attentiveness. I am by nature skeptical of large monolith companies with a CEO that has a 95% chance of being scared of putting his brand in the hands of consumers; not realizing that the only chance s/he has a chance to survive is by doing just that. I don’t think that companies are ready to jump in quite yet.
Eric is obviously in on the mission, and ready to push the LA Times in a good direction.
My suggestion to Eric is to continue the conversation he started in the session on the LA times – on his own blog. The people at the session were very good with the tech side, as well as the consumer side, and I can’t imagine that the LA Times own readership doesn’t have what it takes to make the LA times into the media of our future.
Eric, thanks for restoring my hope in the LA Times to evolve!
Guys, take a sec, and Tell Eric what he can do to make the LA times the newspaper of the future!
P.S. Eric sais that the LA Times has a place for us people to help out the LA Times, it just kinda got buried. Please restore it?
P.P.S. An interesting guy in the field is New Media Bytes, by Shawn Smith.
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Comments
It looks like one of the people that commented on this article didn’t get a pingback from my blog… So I’ll take the liberty of paraphrasing their response.
Christy from About Time Marketing feels that my concerns about having consumers muddle the waters of fact are outweighed by the fact that consumers voices are critical to discovering more information, and also pushing public officials to take action.
All the while, moderation will be a key.
Christy, I agree with you. I do think though, that as traditional media players turn from being one way information mouth-pieces into a venue for their visitors to talk, and express, they will increasingly face issues on how much to moderate people’s opinions.
Either way, thanks again to Eric for raising the issues, and trying to find a middle ground (keep us informed)!
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